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This latest work centers on characters pursuing fresh starts, struggling to escape substance abuse or abusive marriages, only to witness hope devolve into aggression. The author often employs the phrase "fresh start", making it intentionally weary through its repetitions. Phrases such as "He aimed to start over" and "They chose to begin anew" appear throughout the narrative. Meanwhile, Kraus herself seems to be making her own fresh start, because this seems a new kind of book – documentarian, genuinely novelistic. Yet it proves to be laden with the recurring issues and styles as past novels.

From Chance Novelist to Cult Classic

The writer started out as an artist who transitioned to writing almost accidentally with her 1997 cult classic I Love Dick, which was composed of missives to a distant beloved, transforming personal female narrative from self-debasement into rebellion. She persisted as a writer, but the following three fascinating and rebarbative novels did not possess the shock and immediacy that the correspondence format imparted to the tone of I Love Dick. It didn't help was her identity as a maverick maker who had evolved into a large-scale low-rent landlord, so there was much discussion on property transactions. It follows that she currently desires to try out new kinds of material, looking outwards to the experiences of others, at a moment when she asserts that contemporary political climate turns intimate literature unnecessary.

Multiple Generations, Collective Unavoidable Background

The Four Spent the Day Together is organized into a trio of segments, spanning multiple eras – all unable to escape their backgrounds. There is the story of a couple named Emma and Jasper, based on the author's parents, moving from the New York borough to a pastoral setting. Then there is the story of Kraus herself, in the guise of protagonist Catt Greene, reckoning with the late recognition of I Love Dick, the emergence of Trump, and her partner struggling with addiction her husband Paul. And there is the account of a killing of one lost young man by another in a community mostly forsaken by liberal ideals only a brief drive from Catt's cottage in the Minnesota countryside.

As a reader attracted to refined literature of the sort the author herself typically rejects, I was seduced by the novelistic voice of the opening part.

As someone who reads who appreciates precise prose of the style that the author usually avoids, I was captivated by the novelistic voice of the initial part. There is a new quality of attentiveness that accommodates minutiae, like the container that the protagonist as a child pries out of frozen water at the beginning of the narrative, helped by her adored dad. "I discovered a frozen plaything!" she exclaims; "a nice toy", he replies, "the nuanced interpretations of terms rolling around in their mouths like piece candy". Kraus writes the tale of Emma with interest and closeness. "Emma felt like she'd stepped into a dream – not hers, exactly."

Frustration and Disruption

I was destined to be disappointed when I hoped this new voice could persist to the end. The author states here that she resents the satisfaction audiences such as myself have taken from I Love Dick; she's devoted to disruption, to the untidy aesthetics she has in common with her inspiration Kathy Acker, and the emptiness and redundancy of her previous novels comes back in the middle section. Catt Greene is working on refurbishing 36 run-down apartments in Albuquerque's worst neighbourhoods while shuttling between the Midwest and the West Coast, unable to aid Paul control his drinking. She is overwhelmed as Paul moves between underfunded jobs as an substance abuse counselor in a world driven by the rage and anxiety that drives an electoral success. Multiple pages are devoted about Catt being cancelled on a platform, her professional designation altered from "novelist" to "real estate holder" on Wikipedia. She still gives the impression to be overly concerned about this. At one point she remarks that she's investigating the murder so that before leaving Minnesota, "she might be able to learn something about an America that her social media opponents would not understand, would overlook entirely".

The Killing Story

Then we reach to the murder itself – and the titular day spent by the victim with the perpetrator and his associates. Kraus has great source material, and knows hour by hour what transpired when the victim Brandon came to see Brittney after encountering her on a platform where she offered adult photos. He was hoping for sex but appears congenially to have passed the day in the company of her associates, loitering getting his car mended and funding treats and narcotics, before being killed by gunfire by her romantic interest a man named Micah – a youth with psychological issues who has often been institutionalized for violent rage.

Fascination and Incompletion

Catt gets obsessed by the account, and I was fascinated by the way that her twin drives towards responsible documentation and daring boundary-pushing clash in this segment. But I'd have liked her to explore more thoroughly her own obsessions here. The standout figure is the character Brittney, who gains dimension partially because of Catt seeing herself in her – another bright, bullied girl derailing in a struggling, neglected community. The author informs us that the protagonist communicates with Brittney in detention, but she fails to enact these dialogues. The complete segment feels oddly unfinished, to the extent that her narrative ends almost mid-par